Iceland: Siltanews – News Desk
For some, Christmas isn’t complete without snow, but for me there’s no festive season without a Christmas tree. In my quest to find an authentic, Iceland-grown Christmas tree, I reached out to Guðmundur Sigurðsson, a farmer who cultivates a pine forest in Lundarreykjadalur. A humble and honest man, Guðmundur may have retired a few years ago, but instead of lounging around, he’s zipping around the forest hills on his ATV. I went along for the ride.
I have been interested in agriculture since I was a kid. I grew up in the north, in Þingeyjarsýsla, where my dad, a priest, had sheep and cows. I grew up farming and always wanted to go to a farmers’ school and become a farmer. That’s what I did! I am educated as an agricultural specialist. I taught agriculture for five years at Bændaskólinn (the farmer’s school) here in Hvanneyri. Then, I worked for 20 years as an advisor for the ministry, working with farmers in the western part of the country, followed by 15 years with the forestry organisation. I’ve always had a deep interest in agriculture. It’s been my life and joy!
My wife, Sigrún, is from here and she owns the land we’re going to visit. Twenty years ago, I started growing a forest. At that time, I was working for the forestry organisation and was in charge of planting trees across the entire western part of the country, mostly for farmers starting their own forests. I was doing this full-time but quit five years ago — I retired when I was 70.
My interest lies in forest growing. I don’t have the land for Christmas trees specifically, but I grow pine trees. When they’re planted too closely together, I have to trim them. I may start selecting certain trees to use as Christmas trees and trim the others. On average, it takes six to 10 years to grow a Christmas tree. I cut down the ones that aren’t suitable or that don’t grow well and use them for firewood or shred them into chips to make paths. I usually trim trees in the winter when there’s frost.
Every year, I sell about 100 trees from my forest. Additionally, a buddy of mine and I visit other farms and take around 200 more trees. We often go to forests where the owners may not feel confident in handling the felling themselves. Roughly 100 trees will go to the Search and Rescue team, sold to them at a discount.
I’ve sometimes invited people to come to my forest to choose and cut the tree they like. Now, it’s a bit more difficult, since we have a house on the property, which we rent out. But we did this last year — we even had some Santa Clauses that came to the forest and everyone got hot chocolate.